More on the existance of our souls

Faith & Science Conversation
40

Christianity covers ontology, teleology, epistemology and all the rest. Atheism? Not so much.

41

Atheism is an accident of history, developmental after theism. Even though it’s at least as old as Psalms. Logically, philosophically it comes first. Under the better name physicalism. It doesn’t oppose a dialectical synthesis of theism. It is sufficient. It is the synthesis. Theism is not even an equal antithesis (and that would not be enough). It has work to do. That it can’t. It will always lose. Logically. Rationally.

And Christian theism is not coherent. Not rational. That’s not a rejection of it. It’s just a fact. Look at this site.

So, it has to fight where it has a fighting chance. Not first in the logos. In the pathos. Of the Logos.

42

Atheism is just an answer to the question “Do you believe in deities?”. It was never meant to be anything else. You might as well expect not believing in Bigfoot to cover all aspects of morality and philosophy. However, there are a whole host of philosophical and epistemological avenues that are common among atheists, such as rational skepticism or secular humanism.

43

Yeah, but Christianity is true. (The game is rigged, as gbob and Maggie have illustrated well.)

44

Life would be much easier if something became true just by proclaiming it to be true.

45

gbob, Maggie and I, and others as well, have demonstrated that “the game being rigged” is not just an empty claim nor just a simple proclamation.

(The moderators are scowling on me linking to my own posts, even though it makes perfect sense in context. I know that you have seen, them, though, T.)

46

When you only count the good coincidences and ignore all of the bad ones, that is rigging the game.

47

God gave me kidney cancer, or at least permitted it, in his providence. How is that for a good coincidence?

48

Physicalism addresses them all more parsimoniously. And all the rest.

49

Sure it does. Believe what you will.

(Okay, if your physicalism includes God, and since you claim monism and God, I suppose it does. T_ doesn’t.)

50

For those fortunate to have not seen my nephrectomy account yet, your luck – as if there were such a thing – just ran out:

51

(An additional footnote):
 

I haven’t mentioned the timing and the placing of the 2017 solar eclipse in that account:

It brought my son home, an astronomy buff and now a Swiss citizen who lives in Zürich, during the period of my recovery (which was really good for his mom :slightly_smiling_face:), since we live only 20 miles from the center of the umbral track. He had been planning to come for maybe a year or more prior.

So God is sovereign over the timing and placing of molecular mutations as well as the spheres in the heavens, all illustrated in one account.

52

It’s not a matter of belief. It’s a quantifiable matter of parsimony.

53

Not in any coherent, rational, parsimonious, transferable way. I’m glad you’re better.

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54

Is the latter of those referring to the former? How can it be quantifiable and not be coherent nor rational?

55

Complexity is computable. Specifying a particular truly random integer out of infinite is impossibly complex, generating as many integers as you want in series is a line of code. And your kidney would only be theistically significant if the details had been in a sealed prophecy.

56

Or the game is rigged. Time and chance happen to all, but to whom and when are individual and independent.
 

That is only your belief and not proof of anything. I don’t think you get Maggie’s sequence or gbob’s lottery ticket analogy, nor adequately appreciate God’s sovereignty, personhood and interventionism.
 

The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.

57

Okay, I guess I should agree with that. My kidney absolutely was ‘theistically significant’, and on your terms (not to mention Maggie’s wonderful sequence and gbob’s translator):

Your eyes saw me when I was formless; all my days were written in your book and planned before a single one of them began.

58

So if I believe that the mind is separate from the body then I won’t lose all consciousness under anesthesia?

Your belief has nothing to do with it. I have said that the brain is some sort of interface device cut the communication cables, as anesthesia does, will make you seem not to be there.

That’s just it. Did I make a choice, or was there only one outcome given my past experience and current mind set? How could we tell?

I think you are conflating free will/ determinism with intentionality. Intentionality means you have an intention to do something, that could be due to free will or to determinism. That is not the issue I am dealing with here–just the nature of the soul and intentionality.

You seem to just assert that we have intentionality without actually demonstrating it.

I think I did demonstrate intentionality. You just ignored it all or conflated it with free will vs determinism.

Added in edit:

When you use a random number generator on a computer, does the computer decide which number to give you? Does the computer have intetionality?

Again, this isn’t intentionality–it is the question of free will and determinism
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59

I have to be content that works for you and those with similar epistemologies.